Monday, February 16, 2015

Halt and Catch Joker

Somewhere inside Gotham there is a decent story trying to get out.

Unfortunately there is a bigger, meaner, more staggeringly flawed story trying to keep it locked in the basement. Sure, sometimes, the Big Lumpen story brings venerable characters up from the basement and makes them dance, but they're awkward, and mostly clomp around like brainwashed henchmen.

The actor who played The Joker did a fine job, but things are now such that when things actually fit together and run smoothly and well even for a few minutes, it feels like a minor miracle instead of one element in a competently-told story.

A blind psychic came to me with a message from beyond the grave that there is a fight in the Gotham writer's room between a tiny, inexperienced minority who want to do a good job, and a larger gang of older writers who want the hell outta there and are tanking the show on purpose.

I have absolutely no reason to believe the blind psychic's message.

But Gotham gives me no reason not to.

Meanwhile, at the other end of Origin Story Monday, Better Call Saul has come off the line like Supercar,

4 comments:

OHMIGOD!!!! Drifty, you just dragged your Brother From The Same Spiritual Mother right out of the clutches of the H1 variant influenza bunghole rapist virus he has fighting for four days now. You have delivered a healing unto my retroviral invaded body and lifted the putrid veil of contagion from my bloodshot eyes!!! BEHOLD HEATHENS OF HELLFIRE & VILE TROLLOPS OF SATAN!!! SUPERCAR THE SAVIOR OF ALL MANKIND IS AMONGST YOU & MIKE MERCURY IS IT'S ONLY MESSENGER!!!!

Good analysis. Gotham definitely feels like a schizophrenic show. My best guess is that someone thought it would be a good idea to combine the somber mood and stylish bleakness of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies with the over-the-top goofiness of the Joel Schumacher Batman movies -- the latter manifesting itself mainly through the way the actors, almost across the board, play their characters in such a cartoonishly one-note manner. In particular, I often find myself feeling sorry for Ben McKenzie (Jim Gordon); the way he constantly grimaces and growls his lines through his teeth conveys the impression of a man with a chronic case of acid reflux.

This is the problem: I'm home on Monday nights in time to watch BCS or Gotham.

But that's also when SVU reruns are on the local MyNet. And I am not going to miss the continuing adventures of Hair Wings Benson, UnStabler, "That's Messed Up" Tutuola, and John "I'm In Every TV Universe" Munch.

Also I can't watch BCS because I don't have cable... but I might sign up for SlingTV if they get a few more channels.